You've got to want it to win it

Today I went running with Hilary and Lauren away from the inversion cloud over the city up to 11th Avenue.  There were blue skies!  We ran down City Creek, then Lauren split but Hilary and I kept going up the canyon.  Hilary turned at 5 but I kept going until I was at 6.  The canyon was so amazing and the skies were so blue and the air was so clean!  I enjoyed the way back just as much :)  Beautiful run :)  and my longer cooldown Saturday was definitely worth it, my calves were barely sore.  Wonderful day!

Today we had a workout at the oval.  We started with 7 laps warmup and then the usual strides and drills.  The workout was two 200s and then six 800s, each set of two getting 4 seconds faster.  On the 200s I hit 35 and 36 at what felt a comfortable effort.  For the 800s I was supposed to go 2:42, 2:38, and 2:34.  On the first one I hit 2:40 pretty relaxed, but Kep wanted me to go 2:42.  For recovery I ran to the 1000 start and then did an 800 from there.  On that one I hit 2:42.  Took recovery to the 800 start, switching the start and finish made it go by faster for sure.  My next one was 2:38, it was starting to get hard, and then I sorta died and hit 2:41, 2:44, 2:50.  I decided to do two 200s afterwards, I hit 39 for both of those.  I think I need to practice shorter quicker stuff such as 400s before trying to pick up the pace for the longer type stuff.  It was definitely a weird jump between MD and LD workouts... What I need is an in between.  And I really wouldn't mind doing a lot of reps of 400s or something.  For cooldown I did 10 laps with Hilary.  For some reason we were both really grumpy so we complained very loudly as we passed the people standing in lane one stretching, and the high school group warmup up that needed to run 4 lanes wide...  And we cheered for a guy doing a tempo run.

Today a lot of the members of my team were running indoors... but I really didn't want to.  Lucky for me, Amanda was willing to run outside, and to drive to City Creek so we could run up the canyon! :)  We parked at the gate and then ran up the road :)  It just kept getting more beautiful as we went further up.  The sky was very blue and it was actually a very sunny day!  :)  We went until there was a truck parked at the end of the wider road and as far as it was plowed.  That was around 3.3 so we turned and ran back down.  The sad part about this was that now we could see the cloudy city we were running into... Amanda was doing 50 minutes so she finished when we got back to the gate but she waited while I ran up the road a little and back down to get to 8 miles.  Beautiful day in the canyon!!! :) 

15 minute ice bath in the evening.   

Most of the other distance girls had a workout today so I did my pre-meet on my own.  I ran up by the dorms and then to the post office and up Sunnyside until I hit 2 miles and then ran back but on the opposite side of the roads as before to change it up.  Then I did strides and drills by E HPER until I was at 4.5.  Then I went inside for a nice long stretch before stemming for 20 minutes.  Then I took a 15 minute ice bath when I got home.  The air looked much better today :)  Going to Seattle tomorrow!  And Natalie and I are in the same heat of the 5k :)

Today we flew to Seattle and I raced in the evening.   Kate was also doing the 5k, we went to the track with the rest of the team when they went for their premeet.  I had a while to sit around before it would be time to start warming up, but then Natalie got there and time flew :)  When we went outside to warmup together another girl asked us what heat we were in and she was in the same one so joined us :)  She is from Penn. State.  One of Natalie's teammates also joined us.  We warmed up around campus until we hit 3 miles, then went in for drills and strides.  I did drills on the infield and then went to talk to Kep before starting my strides on the track.  Nat and I were thinking about doing our old cheer but sorta ran out of time before we were being lined up for the start of the race.  I was seed 11 so was right up against the wall.  Good thing I reviewed my blog from this race last year to remind myself what worked for this race then!  Going out I got forced to the outside of the pack and had to run wide in lane 2 for the first lap.  After that I was able to get inside of the pack and in lane 1, then I just went with the group and got a rhythm going.  But it was impossible to really keep a rhythm, girls would come up and cut in too soon or would come and invade my running space, then my focus was shifted to staying on my feet rather than maintaining the rhythm.  A few times I was right next to Nat, it really helped having her in the race because for once in my college career it was like having a team mate who is almost exactly of the same speed, and I hope it helped her when I was running next to her too.  At one point in one of the laps a girl came up between us and was trying to push me, but as I was already on the inside of lane one so I had nowhere to go, so I threw my elbow a few times and I think this made her really mad, but this girl was fighting dirty so I fought back... I was definitely in the racing mentality today!  With about 5 laps to go coming into the straightaway I decided I would try to see if I could move up in the pack.  I did that on the next lap too, and then on the next straightaway without even thinking I went around some girls too.  Then I was leading the pack, but my efforts had made me feel like puking so I wasn't sure how long I would be able to push or if I would have anything left to make a stronger move at 2 laps to go.  I just held on until the last laps came, but I still was able to pull out a kick during the last lap.  And I finished just 4 seconds away from my PR!  And 4 seconds faster than at this meet last year!  Finally I feel as though I can see the work from my workouts paying off in a race, I really patched up the mental strength too.  For cooldown I took my iPod and ran 3 miles around campus.  My calves are really sore and I have some fresh blisters on my feet (racing in my nikes always does that) so I am not sure about racing tomorrow, I will decide in the morning.

I felt much better from my race last night when I woke up this morning, so I decided I'd go ahead and give the 3k a shot.  I told myself that if the warmup felt horrible then I wouldn't do it.  I started warming up with Bekah but she was going faster and I was sore from last night so I was on my own after the first bit.  I stopped to stretch my calves a few times, but I got in 3 miles and besides the calves felt great.  I stretched some more when I went back inside, and then put on my spikes (my asics this time, I have some nasty blisters from last night!) and did strides on the track.  When my race started I pushed my way to a good start, but I was on the outside again so focused on getting inside.  I did, but then most of the pack passed me and I let them because I wanted to stay on the inside.  But I forgot that the pacing would be much different from last night, so I was going at 5k pace and not pushing harder to go with the group and race the 3k.  I'm pretty sure I was at the back, so I made it my goal to at least hang on to the back of the pack and not get gapped.  The mile split was 5:17, then the race took off and I had to work harder to not be at the back by myself.  Each lap I pushed harder but my splits were the same so I knew my efforts were just helping me maintain pace.  I did kick the last lap pretty well, and even caught two girls coming down the home stretch!  For a 3k this wasn't a very good race, but for practicing for the 5k it was decent.  The fact that I was able to come out today and run that pace after racing it last night is amazing to me.  I hope this will carry over to when I do my first 10k on the track!  For cooldown I took my iPod and went out on the bike trail around Seattle.  I went grandma pace on the way out, but as is my rule I made myself pick it up to normal-ish run pace for the way back.  6.5 cooldown to finish off the week at 55.  15 minute ice bath coming up...